Winter Wonderland—Except Not
by Candyland
Summary: —100fandomhell— The snow was so beautiful. But Haruhi should have known better than to think the peace and quiet would last...


**Title: **Winter Wonderland…Except Not  
**Author:** Candyland  
**Fandom:**_Ouran High School Host Club:_ A club full of handsome men entertain majorly squee-ing girls. Oh, and that effeminate one in the corner making coffee? Totally a guy. What, you don't believe me? I DON'T OWN IT!  
**Wordcount:**678  
**Taunt:** My fandom emos in the corner.

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The first snowfall of the year was so beautiful. The entire Ouran campus was buried beneath a thick, heavy blanket of sparkling white snow. It was knee-deep in some places, and judging by a few snow sculptures that had already popped up here and there around the school grounds, it was good packing snow.

Haruhi stood out on the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of her coat. It was even an official Ouran coat—a gift from her fellow Host Club members when the temperature started dropping; sometimes they really did look out for her. She was looking around at the winter wonderland, sparing a moment to just take in the lovely scenery. It was so pretty, so peaceful, so calming…

"HARUHI!!"

…so loud, so annoying, so incapable of giving her a moment's peace.

Still, she obligingly turned and watched with a deadpan look as the rest of the group approached, Tamaki in the lead.

"Admiring the snow?" Tamaki-senpai asked, stopping beside her. He was smiling in a certain way—a good sign. That meant that for the moment he was relaxed, which meant that for the moment she was unlikely to be subjected to any of his speeches. Granted, that could change in a second, but she was happy to live in the immediate present.

"Hmm," she murmured, a sound of agreement. "It's so pretty…"

For a moment the collective Host Club was silent.

Then Tamaki spoke. He got three words into his lengthy, beflowered speech about how fitting it was for beautiful men to be gazed upon in such lovely surroundings as this…and Haruhi stopped listening. She had learned how to tune him out early on in her association with the Host Club, and like the practical girl she was, she had realized that if she could tune him out, she could ignore anything.

Who would have thought that joining the Host Club would give her a such a valuable life skill?

Over Tamaki's ranting, she heard the squeak of footsteps moving across snow behind her…moving past her...

"Tono…"

Tamaki turned at the sound of his nickname—and found himself being rather unceremoniously dumped headfirst into the nearest snowdrift by two smirking twins. The Host Club king quickly liberated himself from the snowbank and scrambled back to his feet, covered from head to toe in frozen white powder.

And lo, the race was on. "HIKARU! KAORU! YOU TWO COME BACK HERE!"

Haruhi stood and watched passively as Tamaki chased the two mischievous twins in circles through the snow. All three of them were regularly stumbling, falling down, and getting back up at regular intervals as they were tripped up by the snow. In short order they were all more or less covered with snow.

She turned and looked at the other club members. Mori-senpai was helping Honey-senpai build a snowman. The stoic upperclassman didn't even seem to mind that Honey-senpai had just dumped a healthy helping of snow on his head. Meanwhile, Kyouya-senpai had his trusty notebook tucked under one arm…and had his camera out to snap picture after picture. She assumed that it was for some sort of photo collection or other merchandise-related endeavor to ensure that the Host Club had enough funds.

Or at least he was taking pictures until an errant snowball from the developing battle between Tamaki and the twins managed to hit Kyouya squarely in the head. Then everything came to a screeching halt.

Slowly, Kyouya lowered the camera to reveal that his eyes were glowing red. "You…" he growled.

Tamaki and the twins suddenly seemed interested in fleeing as fast as they could—quite a challenging feat in the deep snow; Tamaki was screaming something about Okaa-san's wrath.

And Haruhi stood on the sidewalk, watching the chaos around her. And she felt herself smile at the crazy antics of her fellow club members. If nothing else, they certainly did keep things interesting. And she was growing to appreciate that.

Feeling strangely self-indulgent, she started tromping into the snow to see if Honey-senpai wanted any help with that snowman of his.

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**PS.** _As I started writing this, I realized that I canNOT write the twins in character. So…I avoided! Yay! And with this, we have fandom number nine for __**100fandomhell**__. Only ninety-one to go, whee!_

_Thanks for reading, all! Much love!_


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